Local development

Preview your documentation locally with real-time reloading.

The blodemd dev command starts a local preview server that renders your documentation exactly as it appears when deployed. Changes to your content and configuration are reflected in real time.

Start the dev server

blodemd dev

This starts the server at http://localhost:3030 and opens it in your default browser.

Options

Field	Type	Description	Required	Default
`-p, --port`	number	Port to run the dev server on.	Yes	3030
`-d, --dir`	string	Path to the docs directory. Defaults to the current directory.	Yes	—
`--no-open`	boolean	Do not open the browser automatically on start.	Yes	false

Examples

blodemd dev -p 4000

How file watching works

The dev server watches your content directory and reloads automatically when files change.

Change type	Behavior
MDX content edit	Incremental update. Only the affected page is re-rendered.
`docs.json` edit	Full reload. Navigation, theming, and all pages are rebuilt.
New or deleted file	Incremental update. Navigation is refreshed automatically.

File changes are debounced with a 100ms delay to batch rapid edits into a single reload.

Ignored directories

The file watcher skips these directories to avoid unnecessary reloads:

.git
.next
dist
node_modules

The dev server runs the full blode.md rendering engine locally. What you see in the browser matches your deployed site, including search, navigation, and component rendering.